Color calibration of digital image capture devices is important to maintain a high fidelity of the captured image so that a representative image of the item captured may be displayed to a consumer or user of the digital image. This high fidelity becomes more and more important as web-based commerce continues to expand. This may be appreciated as consumers begin to rely more heavily on these images and the accuracy of the colors represented thereon for their purchase decisions. For consumers to continue to expand their usage of web-based commerce, a certain minimum acceptable level of color fidelity quality must be established. Further, this color fidelity must be such that the digital counts output from the capture devices accurately represent the colors as they would appear to a typical human observer. An accurate relationship is necessary to enable reliable digital commerce where users make purchase decisions based upon the trust that the digitally captured image represents the original color appearance of the captured object that is represented in the digital image.
While various methods exist for the calibration of these digital image capture devices, these methods have, to date, required the acquisition of expensive calibration equipment (in the range of $25,000) and the employment of highly trained color scientists. Examples of these calibration procedures may be found in various books and standards, such as Color Management (GATF), Color Management (Giorgianni), the IEC 61966-9 draft specification, and the ISO 17321 draft specification. Calibration facilities and procedures may also be contracted out to specialized laboratories. However, the cost of such calibration services is typically in the range of $20,000 per calibration. As a result, many vendors of these capture devices, especially second and third tier vendors of inexpensive equipment, do not perform this calibration, or perform only a simplified calibration. As a result, many of the images published on the web or used in other media that have been captured by these devices have questionable color fidelity.